Livi v The Sevco

Shite time for a game of football, canny really have a decent pre match build up unless you go to alky'sevco fans levels of starting drinking at 9 o clock in the morning.

Anyway on the match, as usual a free hit for us, not expected to take anything, been 8 games since we took a point off them, although we've come close a couple of times, but they've found a way to break our stubborn defence, hopefully Sevco aren't in full flow as this will be their first competitive game. They'll also have one eye on Tues CL qualifier, so lets send them into it with a defeat.

Dunno what's happening with Penrice, if he's injured for this or not, but Cancar played a blinder at LB/LWB after replacing Montano, so one of those 2 should play there, not going to 2nd guess the whole team as feck knows who Davie will pick and how his mind works, certainly not been in sync with mine in the LC games.

Whatever the result it'll be good getting back to my own seat behind the away dugout, and seeing the boys playing in front of a full stadium, even if 3/4 will be currant buns. Mon the Lions, lets do this, 1-0 Livi.

Yeah, the ticketing and seating for the cup games was very poorly organised. Both times folk were in seats we had tickets for but as there were spaces we weren’t that bothered, however on the first occasion I did mention it to be met with “Ach just sit there, if someone comes we can move along then” as I said, we weren’t overly bothered but why can’t folk just sit in their ticketed seat? Then there is no need to move later if someone turns up.

I think the online stadium map depicts the seats wrongly, I think the numbering is the wrong way round. When I bought ours for the Kelty game the map showed them to be better accessed of the stairs closer to the tunnel but in fact they were accessed from the steps closer to section A3.

Auld Nick wrote:Yeah, the ticketing and seating for the cup games was very poorly organised. Both times folk were in seats we had tickets for but as there were spaces we weren’t that bothered, however on the first occasion I did mention it to be met with “Ach just sit there, if someone comes we can move along then” as I said, we weren’t overly bothered but why can’t folk just sit in their ticketed seat? Then there is no need to move later if someone turns up.

I think the online stadium map depicts the seats wrongly, I think the numbering is the wrong way round. When I bought ours for the Kelty game the map showed them to be better accessed of the stairs closer to the tunnel but in fact they were accessed from the steps closer to section A3.

One of our group has his name on his seat, and he's bursting for someone to be sitting on it, so when he asks them to move and they say has the seat got your name on it like..............................

TALKLIVI doing a good interview with DM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BNSS_C4T8w

Not so sure Shamal will be starting now after listening to it, "Shamal over the next 4 to 6 weeks is still going to be part of a learning curve".

Might see Martindale bringing him in gradually, on as a sub before getting starts, in easier games.

Seems Ivan has settled a bit more and his family is joining him here too.

Or maybe not. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/local-sport/livingston-boss-confident-new-keeper-27588770?fbclid=IwAR3kCjd3B0mly5R2zlhRRAihD8F-eQc-eZBVxdKR7-S8c8okN9t4mq4lKoY

Expected to go straight in against Sevco according to this article.

Just don't think we're ready as yet for Sevco.Theve been impressive pre season as opposed to us with respect.Doubt wel have much possession here but hopefully Davie will have a plan to frustrate the hell out of them.And hopefully the players are up for it and don't freeze on the occasion. Some won't have taken part in a game of this magnitude including the newbies.I really hope it doesn't overwhelm them.Damage limitation could be the order of the day here.Wont define our season of course and in that respect I wish them all the luck in the world.Just have a go Livi,nothing to lose. Mon the Lions..

No Anderson or Josh starting again..God help us.

For a laugh on P&B i predicted us winning 1-0 with Nouble scoring our goal.  close but no cigar.

Was nice while it lasted.




Feels gutting coming away with nothing but gallant effort from the Lions, put a lot into the game and big Nouble picked some game to get his first goal, hopefully just the start for him now he's off and running. Shamal put in a good performance too, blocking a few goalmouth scrambles and double saves, kicking was decent too.

I said this in the Kelty thread. “ Midfield is a difficult conundrum, as was mentioned above, Holt, Omeonga & Pittman are feisty wee guys that get stuck in but Shinnie is one of our best players at reading the game and finding a pass and Kelly has shown his ability in breaking up play especially in the first half of the games he’s played this season and takes a very good penalty. So maybe we play all 5 in a 4-5-1 with either Bruce or Joel up top.”

And for most of the match it was working.

Brilliant goal from Noobs, reminiscent of Dykes v Celtic, pity we couldn’t add the second when he went through in the second half and Omeonga fired over.

Arfield and Tavernier both getting trademark goals that they get regularly  every season to turn it around. Not sure why our “equaliser” was disallowed.

Oh…and that kit was superb with the black shorts, just the way it ought to be.

Feel let down by the club with the amount if sevco fans allowed in the home end. This has always been a problem with a few here and there, but today there was a large group allowed in. I read that the club was not going to allow these fans in.

AwNaw wrote:Feel let down by the club with the amount if sevco fans allowed in the home end. This has always been a problem with a few here and there, but today there was a large group allowed in. I read that the club was not going to allow these fans in.

Don't think they can stop them getting in, but once identified they were going to remove them. Didn't happen though, there were some moved over at C3, but plenty of them were in other sections, openly wearing Sevco colours.

The club has confirmed that a policy agreed with the Police and Stewards will be that any 'away' fans identified in the West Stand will be removed. Additional Police and Stewards are being provided. In addition the club is looking at ways to prevent this happening in the future

The SLO is having a meeting with the club raising these issues on Monday.

We live in a thankfull democracy where we can give our opinions freely.Been trying to compose my self after that.On the game itself yes we did so well for 65 mins or so which surprised the life out of me.As has been covered Omeonga buries that and it should have been game over.He didnt.Possibly Anderson if brought earlier might have made the difference. You guys have covered the other aspects I was going to comment on,so won't go over it again.Glorious failure. On the situation regarding away support in our end.How many times has this happened before and nothing short has been done about it.It gets tedious at best hearing this time and time again and many Livi fans feel the same.So the SLO has a meeting with the club.LFC is a business and as such will explore every avenue to take as much income as we can.I was fortunate that the grievances were well away from me thankfully. This will happen again regardless of SLO meetings etc.Ive a silly solution.For big games West Stand open only to season ticket holders only.Despite hospitality incumbents who feel theve the right to behave as they feel.But there again,due to lack of home numbers,genuine I might add,the club would probably shoot that out of the water due to the financial loss it would sustain. Its a can of worms thats been with us for god knows how long.Having said all that,there's a helluva lot of disgruntled Livi fans out there, and rightly so.Apologies for the rant.But well done the team..

No evidence of a foul for disallowing Ayo's goal, Sportscene verdict was it should've stood too, wonder if VAR will change this sort of decision for us when playing the erse cheeks, not holding my breath.

Liviforever wrote:No evidence of a foul for disallowing Ayo's goal, Sportscene verdict was it should've stood too, wonder if VAR will change this sort of decision for us when playing the erse cheeks, not holding my breath.

Might not have been why the ref blew but I think VAR would have highlighted Nouble holding the Rangers player.

That apart I guess I'm content that we didn't get humped although to go so far in the game without conceding then let in two in two was disappointing at the time. Great team effort. Be interesting now to see how we fare against the rest.

The ref blew before the ball was in the net, might even have been before Ayo’s initial header; if that happened with VAR in place it wouldn’t change anything. The only hope we’d have had would be the ref letting it go and then VAR checking after the ball went in, then it would be checking to see if there was a foul in the build up.

From what I’ve seen of VAR down south I don’t want it. The refs down there are miles better than the guys up here and they are pretty poor when it comes to VAR decisions, so I can’t see it improving the decisions made up here, cause it will be the blind leading the blind.

If VAR was in place the refs let things go till they can check it on VAR later after a goal has been scored.

Ridiculous if it's for having your arms around a player, look at every set piece and you'll see that, unless they're going to award free kicks and pens for every player doing it then it's a nonsense for random decisions. Miller said it wasn't enough for a foul too.

Ref had his whistle to his mouth waiting to blow it though, must've been desperate to do so. Wonder if he'd have been so keen the other way around to give us a pen.


On the term buying a free kick, Miller using it describing Nouble getting us up the pitch and buying us free kicks, Shinnie used it too in his post match interview, i really don't think that term applies to Nouble, he gets fouled, quite cynically to stop him breaking up the pitch, that isn't buying us a free kick. Marv was an expert at buying us free kicks, Holt is good at it too, and even Pittman did it against Sevco, getting their body in front of an opposition player, waiting to be bumped, then going down for a free kick to take the pressure off us in defeince. That isn't in any way shape or form what Nouble was doing, or does. He always takes the ball and goes, always gets held onto yet still keeps going, has no intention of falling down to buy free kicks, which is prob why refs don't give him the amount of foulds he should be getting, because of his strength and size he can shrug off a lot of the plyers fouling him.

Ive already put the Sevco game to bed.Its gone now.But on the subject of VAR.How fechin frustrating is it going to be when we are not going to see for ourselves when certain issues correct or not happen at the Vale.Weve no way of knowing what we've just witnessed as we've no screens at the stadium. Only the officials will see what we all should see.Ive wanted these for donkeys years but due to finances probably won't see them in my lifetime. As I say frustrating that other clubs will benefit.Sorry..

It'll be interesting to see if Nouble is played as a striker again for us, knowing how Martindale tried it with Shinnie after he scored against Celtic i think he will. Unlike Shinnie though i actually think Joel could do a decent job for us there, certainly would rag doll the CB's same as Dykes did, he's physically bigger and stronger than Dykes too.

We were all worried about only having Anderson up front, but if Nouble can score 6 or 7 goals this season he'd be a decent striker for us, as well as having Bruce as our main striker. Basically it would give Nouble the option to play anywhere in a front three, and even pairing with Anderson if we switched it to a front 2 during the game. He could switch positions to rough up all their defenders too, making it harder for opposition managers to work out how to neutralize his threat. Course he's still to prove himself as a goal scorer but at the very least he gets us up the pitch and brings others into play, no matter where he's positioned.

Buying free kicks…. When you buy you have to pay, Noobs is paying by being fouled, so is buying the free kick.

Holt sells a free kick and the ref buys it. (No idea what the ref “pays” but that is always how I’ve viewed that “tactic”).

Absolutely no idea if that is what they mean but it could be.

Buying a free kick was always meaning you manufactured it, sucked an opposition player in to foul you, looking for contact to fall down, and were looking to get one to take the pressure off, Miller was meaning the latter part of that when he referred to Nouble buying us them, which wasn't the case. Nouble wasn't trying to be fouled, or wanted to get fouled to take the pressure off us, his sole intention was taking the ball up the pitch and trying to get us a goal. Everytime Nouble gets the ball he's being grabbed by the arm, or shirt, but tries to keep going, never seen him just falling down looking for a free kick. If anything he does the opposite and is being fouled but powers his way through and keeps on going, so a lot of the time the ref just ignores him being fouled.

Both Holt and Pittman did the getting their bodies in front of the ball to be bumped over by a Sevco player, and bought us a foul.

Selling it was giving it away, selt the jersey, lost a goal, the game, with a mistake. Or sold him a dummy, making him think you were going one way then went the other. Never heard the term selling a foul.

The state of Noobs shirt in the post match interview was a disgrace.The amount of times it was pulled by them was ridiculous. Why I ask myself.Simple,they couldn't handle him‍�.

Yeah, I get you LF, just trying to work out why they would use it the way they did.

There is also the selling it to the ref that I refer to where you get a free kick for nothing

Meant to mention this earlier too… on leaving the ground on Saturday, unfortunately with the unwashed hoards milling around, I was surprised and delighted to overhear one of them on the phone telling the person at the other end that Nouble had “terrorised them”…unusual to get such praise and honesty from one of them.

Yeh,a few of my Sevco supporting workmates said the same on Monday morning.And how relieved they were to get out of there,especially if that second goal had gone in.Promising.

I was genuinely surprised how well Nouble did, esp when he scored, it was so reminiscent of when Dykes scored against Celtic, and terrorised their big defender, Julien (sp). Nouble was magnificent playing as a lone striker and target man, something that didn't really work for him last season. He'll give CB's nightmares having to face him this season.